his position as well as that of his companion to assume a darker, and
consequently a more terrible mystery.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, in a low and trembling voice, "I know you now. You
are the stranger who came to stop in the 'Mitre.' Yes, you came down
to stop in the 'Mitre.' I know you by your strong grasp. I care not,
however, for your attempt to strangle me. I forgive you--I pardon you;
and I will tell you why--treat me as violently as you may--I feel that
there is goodness in your face, and mercy in your heart. But I did see
a face, one day, in the inn," he added, in a voice that gradually became
quite frantic--"a face that was dark, damnable, and demoniac--oh, oh!
may God of heaven ever preserve me from seeing that face again!" he
exclaimed, shuddering wildly. "Open me up the shrouded graves, my
friend; I will call you so notwithstanding what has happened, for
I still think you are a gentleman; open me up, I say, the shrouded
graves--set me among the hideous dead, in all their ghastly and
loathsome putrefaction--lay me side by side with the sweltering carcass
of the gibbeted murderer--give me such a vision, and expose me to the
anger of the Almighty when raging in his vengeance; or, if there be a
pitch of horror still beyond this, then I say--mark me, my friend--then
I say, open me up all hell at full work--hissing, boiling, bubbling,
scalding, roasting, frying, scorching, blazing, burning, but
ever-consuming hell, sir, I say, in full operation--the whole dark and
penal machinery in full play--open it up--there they are--the yell,
the scream, the blasphemy, the shout, the torture, the laughter of
despair--with the pleasing consciousness that all this is to be eternal;
hark ye, sir, open me up a view of this aforesaid spectacle upon the
very brow of perdition, and having allowed me time to console myself
by a contemplation of it, fling me, soul and body, into the uttermost
depths of its howling tortures; do any or all of these things, sooner
than let me have a sight of that face again--it bears such a terrible
resemblance to that which blighted me."

He then paused for a little, and seemed as if about to sink into a
calmer and more thoughtful mood--at least the baronet inferred as
much from his silence. The latter still declined to speak, for he felt
perfectly aware, from this incoherent outburst, that although Fenton had
seen him only two or three times, many years ago, when the unfortunate
young man was scarcely a bo